All posts tagged Asda

On London’s Old Kent Road (brown on the local Monopoly board), it was a tale of two Black Fridays.

At one end, Asda, owned by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s biggest retailer. Doors to the vast superstore opened at midnight. At 10 a.m., shoppers were still queuing behind heavy metal barriers to get in. TVs, game consoles and headphones had already sold out. Security staff said there had been a number of scuffles, but the police hadn’t yet been called. Read More »

In a bid to claw back customers from the fast-growing budget end of the U.K. grocery market, supermarket chain J Sainsbury PLC has launched a trial partnership with Danish discount retailer Netto.

The project, seen as departing Sainsbury Chief Executive Justin King’s swan song, aims to introduce five stores in the north of England in the run-up to Christmas, with a further 15 planned before the end of 2015.

The U.K.’s traditional supermarket companies started losing significant market share to discounters such as Aldi Stores Ltd. and Lidl Ltd. in the 2008 downturn, and shoppers have kept flocking to the low-price chains even as the British economy has improved. Sainsbury, No. 3 in the market behind struggling Tesco PLC and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Asda, has had its growth slow down lately but is looking to the partnership with Dansk Supermarked A/S’s Netto unit for a new path to expansion. Read More »